A green wall? Kenya, organics, and food miles
The restriction of long-distance organic trade would damage African farmers while having minimal effects on the environment, argue Stephen Browne & Alexander Kasterine. A rising concern with personal and environmental health in the world’s richer countries is influencing lifestyles and public debate alike. One significant trend is the increase in the consumption of organically grown...
Beyond abstract solidarity
[Open Democracy] James Mensch asks us to be careful of easy generalisations about “solidarity”. Is it necessarily exclusionary? or grounded in the past, the tribe? No, when we examine the lived examples of solidarity, we find a diversity of practices and habits that is not easily reducible to grand theorising. In our increasingly interdependent world,...
Images des Maroc
Just back from Morocco and studying again… Here are some pictures from an interesting journey through the High Atlas, through the Sahara and along the Atlantic Coast. People who looked at this item also looked at… HOME: It’s Too Late To Be A Pessimist Related items Rebuild Your Future HOME: It’s Too Late To Be...
What the world needs now
In the early 1890s, Mahatma Gandhi worked as a lawyer in South Africa. One day, while travelling in a first-class train compartment on business, he was ordered to move to third class, which was designated for non-whites. Gandhi refused, producing his valid first-class ticket as evidence of his right to stay. At the next stop,...
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto
Given the volume of commentary from bloggers throughout the world about the assassination of ex-prime minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto, earlier today in Rawalpindi, Global Voices has set up a Special Coverage page aggregating some of the reactions from Pakistan and other parts of south Asia, as well as their own coverage on Global Voices....
No more charity, please!
Charity is in. Bill Clinton has written a bestseller about it and rock stars are organizing concerts. But Moniek Zegers, co-founder of the recently launched Dutch Comité tegen Goede Doelen Gekte (“Committee against good-cause lunacy”) says we shouldn’t be giving more but taking less. Read more in Ode Magazine… Global Info (in Dutch) published a...
Goodbye Free Trade, Hello Mercantilism…
As countries grow more interdependent, they’re also becoming more nationalistic, tells us another Newsweek article. Is there a clear trend towards mercantilism, or could it be merely a reaction on the current Western, neoliberal expansionism? (for those who believe in it). Here’s today’s quiz. What do the following have in common: (a) Vladimir Putin; (b)...
The Booming South – and the Good News…
A recent article in Newsweek comes with an unexpeted story: despite the economic gloom, a looming credit crisis, failing holiday shoppings in Great Britain and the US, the numbers tell us something other about most developing countries outside western Europe and the US. On the contrary: the future looks actually quite bright, when 98% of...
Global justice and the costs of climate change: Who pays?
Extreme weather events, partly caused by climate change, are already wreaking havoc, especially in the South. Both floods and droughts are expected to become more frequent and more severe. But who will pay for the measures needed to respond to the impacts of climate change? Read more at The Broker… Related items HOME: It’s Too...
The Seemingly Impossible is Possible
Hans Roslings presentation at the TED-conference in 2006 has been seen by around 500.000 people over the internet, at TED‘s web-page , at Google Video or Youtube. This year, 2007, Hans Roslings TED-speach focused on making the seemingly impossible, possible. Prof. Hans Rosling uses software from Gapminder debunks a few myths about the “developing” world....
Farewell to Development’s Old Divides
By James D. Wolfensohn NEW YORK — The notion of a divide between the rich north and the poor and developing south has long been a central concept among economists and policymakers. From 1950 to 1980, the north accounted for almost 80% of global GDP but only 22% of its population, and the south accounted...
Developing Countries / Earth & Environment / Globalization & Global Culture / Politics & International Relations / Sustainable Development / World
Environment and (under)development are strongly enmeshed, says HDR 2007
This week the UNDP released its Human Development Report in BrasÃlia. It shows how two of the world’s biggest problems, which can eventually evolve into catastrophes, are actually deeply enmeshed in each other and that they need an integrated political approach. Brasilia, 27 November 2007—With governments preparing to gather in Bali, Indonesia to discuss the...
